The situation in 1893 was about as here outlined.  The letters to Hall of that year are frequent and carry along the story.  To any who had formed the idea that Mark Twain was irascible, exacting, and faultfinding, they will perhaps be a revelation.

To Fred J. Hall, in New York: 

Florence, Jan. 1, ’93.  Dear Mr. Hall,—­Yours of Dec. 19 is to hand, and Mrs. Clemens is deeply distressed, for she thinks I have been blaming you or finding fault with you about something.  But most surely that cannot be.  I tell her that although I am prone to write hasty and regrettable things to other people, I am not a bit likely to write such things to you.  I can’t believe I have done anything so ungrateful.  If I have, pile coals of fire on my head, for I deserve it!

I wonder if my letter of credit isn’t an encumbrance?  Do you have to deposit the whole amount it calls for?  If that is so, it is an encumbrance, and we must withdraw it and take the money out of soak.  I have never made drafts upon it except when compelled, because I thought you deposited nothing against it, and only had to put up money that I drew upon it; that therefore the less I drew the easier it would be for you.

I am dreadfully sorry I didn’t know it would be a help to you to let my monthly check pass over a couple of months.  I could have stood that by drawing what is left of Mrs. Clemens’s letter of credit, and we would have done it cheerfully.

I will write Whitmore to send you the “Century” check for $1,000, and you can collect Mrs. Dodge’s $2,000 (Whitmore has power of attorney which I think will enable him to endorse it over to you in my name.) If you need that $3,000 put it in the business and use it, and send Whitmore the Company’s note for a year.  If you don’t need it, turn it over to Mr. Halsey and let him invest it for me.

I’ve a mighty poor financial head, and I may be all wrong—­but tell me if I am wrong in supposing that in lending my own firm money at 6 per cent I pay 4 of it myself and so really get only a per cent?  Now don’t laugh if that is stupid.

Of course my friend declined to buy a quarter interest in the L. A. L. for $200,000.  I judged he would.  I hoped he would offer $100,000, but he didn’t.  If the cholera breaks out in America, a few months hence, we can’t borrow or sell; but if it doesn’t we must try hard to raise $100,000.  I wish we could do it before there is a cholera scare.

I have been in bed two or three days with a cold, but I got up an hour ago, and I believe I am all right again.

How I wish I had appreciated the need of $100,000 when I was in New York last summer!  I would have tried my best to raise it.  It would make us able to stand 1,000 sets of L. A. L. per month, but not any more, I guess.

You have done magnificently with the business, and we must raise the
money somehow, to enable you to reap the reward of all that labor. 
                              Sincerely Yours
                                        S. L. Clemens.